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FirmlyRefuse 8 - 17 Apr 2012 - Main.LizzieGomez
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| | I found this campaign (http://firmlyrefuse.tumblr.com) at Harvard to get students to think about why they are choosing to work for firms to be interesting, particularly given the themes of this course and our conversation today about grades.
Grades for me have served to stand-in for concerted thought as to what I'm actually doing here. I have convinced myself that if my grades are good enough, I'll have options because a strong transcript resonates across different realms of employment (this is essentially the point Ben made today about the fear of having paths foreclosed). No matter what it is actually decide I want to do with my practice, I consoled myself that having a strong strong transcript wouldn't be a detriment. Probably that's true, at least in bureaucratic employment fields where such factors matter, but focusing on grades has meant that I've spent little time thinking about my purpose in earning this license. This makes it more likely that I'll funnel into EIP, because it's easy and because I haven't really thought about what I would do instead. Grades aren't the only reason I haven't set about designing an alternative, but they are a part of it. | | | (I'm sorry, I don't know what I did, but I tried to fix the mix-up as best as I could. It looks like Alexandra and I were editinga t the same time, and caused some issues. Alexandra, sorry if any of what you wrote got screwed up.
-- AgnesPetrucione - 17 Apr 2012 | |
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> | I complete agree with you, Jessica. For the longest, grades represented the freedom of options to me – something very important when one grows up in a community where there are so few options. That was much true in my case, and I’m sure that resonates with many others as well. It was common for most kids in my neighboring high schools to either drop out for the sake of dropping out or to have babies or to help support a family. I was fortunate enough to attend to a magnet school, which was marginally better than the public schools in my area, and I was convinced that getting good grades would help me not end up like them. This sounds horrible, I know. But I don’t think I’m alone in feeling that way, so I’ll move on. Anyway, grades certainly brought plenty of options my way when selecting colleges. The doors my grades open was so satisfying that I was almost set on this path that would’ve watered down my educational experience to just some means to an end. But I was fortunate enough to go to a really small liberal arts college where learning for the sake of wanting to learn was really the focus. What made this true is the really small classes I took (my biggest class had 20 students, but I know a biology 101 class had about 90 students) and the relationships with my professors. The contrast between my relationship with my college professors and here is like night and day. In college, there was no way anyone could hide from a professor when there were only 15 to 20 students in a class, so a student-teacher relationship was formed without much effort. For me, it was quite normal to see my professors on a regular basis outside of class. I’d often see them at the local coffee shop and would not think twice about sitting down for a quick chat. My classmates and I would have dinners with a few of them. To be sure, grades were still important for me, but they really took on a different meaning back then. In my classes, I felt part of an ongoing, important conversation such that grades were pushed to the background. I didn’t think about them so much during the semester but it only became relevant come finals. However, at the law school, grades are at the forefront of our minds from our first day in class. Students (and this certainly cuts both ways) also don’t value as much building a relationship with professors. I remember telling someone early on in the semester that I was planning to visit a few professors during office hours, and he looked at me with this puzzled face, as if saying: “Why? It’s not even close to finals yet.” For me, getting to know my professors was just so ingrained in my behavior as a student from my undergrad years that I thought it was not really something anyone would question. And it was also interesting that the first thing that came to my friend’s mind was that my conversation had to do with exams. It didn’t, and I don’t think is the only reasons students should visit professors at all. Anyway, I soon had to accept that fact that I couldn’t expect to replicate the relationships I built with my professors in undergrad (even with putting great effort on my part, I don't think this school's structure is really conducive to fostering these relationships), and it’s a real shame, but I am certainly grateful for knowing what a fruitful student-teacher relationship it like because it’s really powerful one.
-- LizzieGomez - 17 Apr 2012 |
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